Though things have slowed down a bit. Every evening I rebait the traps that need it, and set two under the Jeep’s hood…
One for rats…
And one for mice.
Two traps, no waiting. I’ve only caught two rats under the hood during the whole Campaign of Rodent Terror, but I catch a mouse there almost every night.
Sometimes the mouse successfully cleans out the rat trap before expiring in the mouse trap, sometimes not. For a while I set two mouse traps in there, and I often caught two mice. To be honest, I’m not sure the practice isn’t actually attracting mice to the Jeep. Which really isn’t the point of the exercise.
By far the most successful trap location is the one between the Lair and the woodshed, which seems to be a natural highway. I’ve entirely stopped catching rats in traps set near known nests. The one I leave in the powershed has killed three over a long period of time.
I’m pretty much resolved that this campaign doesn’t have an endgame. I expected to catch three or four rats, and then run out of rats. Instead I’ve caught 19 so far. The pace has slowed, but I don’t think it’s going to stop.
“I’m pretty much resolved that this campaign doesn’t have an endgame … The pace has slowed, but I don’t think it’s going to stop.”
Just like with my ants, there really is no end game. But with persistence you can create a meaningful (if temporary) local dip in their population. So I live with a whole lot fewer ants now, even though I’m out there with my bait two or three time each week chasing down new activity.
If you keep up the pressure, you will have few or no local rodent nests, so you will have fewer of the critters hanging around to ruin your stuff. But you will never have NONE.
Population might pick up come spring.
What Matt said…
Since we’ve had such a nice, warm winter here, I’m expecting an explosion of deer, rabbits, and grasshoppers this summer. You win some… and you lose some, guaranteed.